Body Snatchers is the third out of four film adaptations of the 1955 novel, the first adaptation being Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956 and the second film adaptation was a remake in 1978, both of which had overwhelmingly positive reviews. A later remake, The Invasion, was released in 2007, deviated farthest from the original novel, and was the least successful of all its film adaptations.

The plot, similar to the original novel and its other film adaptations, revolves around the discovery that people are being replaced by almost perfect physical imitations grown from plant-like pods, which take over and kill their human victims as they sleep, turning them to dust. The "pod people", indistinguishable from normal people except for their utter lack of emotion, work together to secretly spread more pods in order to replace the entire human race. The largest difference in this version of the story is that is takes place on an army base in Alabama, unlike a small California town in the original novel or the first film adaptation, or in a city such as San Francisco like in the 1978 remake.